Location is Still Important For Your Small Business

We have always heard that location, location, location is everything. Where does one position the location of your small business? Is location still that important?  I believe that it still is, but perhaps not always for the traditional reasons that we all may think of at first.
 
Of course it all depends on what the business does. If the business is in retail or customer service with sales directly to the consumer then location is everything. One cannot expect to grow a high end restaurant business in an industrial park and expect to survive. Starting up a small manufacturing business would be a perfect fit for an industrial setting.
 
Also check the demographics for the area that you want to set up in. You need to be in location where there is traffic for the type of goods that you selling.  You would want your location to be in a busy mega mall if you are selling the latest clothes and fashions. You could chose a strip mall location or local mall, if you are providing and selling financial services and advice.
 
You need to check out where the schools, office parks and colleges are in relation to the location that you want to set up your business in. Also look at the income demographics. It would be useless to open a high end furniture store in low income neighborhood. Age demographics are important for location too. One cannot open a video game store in an area that is filled with retired people and expect a booming business.
 
Today many small businesses do not require face to face interaction with your customers. Many are information based businesses. These can be run from your basement. So location may not seem as important at first glance.  However, other factors may influence the choice of location. Today logistics plays an ever important role in nontraditional businesses, particularly those that are not brick and mortar based.
 
If access to high speed internet is vital to your virtual business, then location is still critical. In this case if your business location does not have access to a high speed internet infrastructure, it stands much less chance of success. You would have to move your office to location that does.
 
Even if the business is online based, but sells physical products rather than information products, location just as important for shipping and receiving. How are you going to ship the physical product if there are no postal or shipping facilities nearby or if your location is not serviced by any at all?
 
So location is still a very important ingredient to small business success. Location will always play a part whenever there is a need for people to communicate with one another whether it is face to face or not, and to distribute goods and services to one another. 

As we become seasoned business owners, we sometimes get lost in working in our business instead of working on our business. In doing this, we start to lose sight of why we decided to go into business for ourselves and everything we do becomes a habit. This is why, we sometimes need to get back to some of the basics of marketing.

With the economy the way it’s been, I’ve seen a lot of business owners responding to the slow times in fear. The first place business owners cut back is in the amount of money they spend on marketing. One of the reasons for this response is because many business owners view marketing as an expense instead of an investment. I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, “You’ve got to spend money to make money.” It’s true.

With that said, the first thing you need to do is view marketing in a more positive light. Instead of cutting back on your marketing dollars, you need to take this time to regroup and review your business model, see how well you serve your customers, and create a strategic plan for moving forward.

So where do you start?

It’s important to take a look at what you’ve been doing and evaluate how well it’s working. Hopefully you have a plan in place to find out from where you are generating new customers. If not, that’s the first policy you should begin implementing right away.

In evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing program you need to be answering a number of questions like “What strategies have I been using to market my business and which ones have been successful?,” “Is my marketing message focused on what the customer wants or on what I am selling?,” and “How well am I serving my customers?”

Once you do your research, you’ll be able to identify what strategies are working and those that need to be stopped. You will also be able to determine how well your marketing message works. Finally, by talking with your current customers you will be able to ascertain if there are areas of your service that need to be improved. As soon as you reach this point, you’ll be able to create a marketing plan that will get you better results for the investment you are making.